Regímenes de Integración Regional: La construcción institucional de los mercados del sur global

The essay introduces the concept of regional integration regime as an analytical tool for the comparative study of integration processes in emergent economies. Using this concept, the author analyzes in first place the historical path of regional integration in South America and Southeast Asia, establishing the structural relations between regional integration and capitalist development. In second place, the institutional characteristics of contemporary integration regimes are described. The paper concludes advancing some hypotheses –based on political economy– about the depth of the integration and the nature of change within these regional regimes.El presente ensayo introduce el concepto de régimen de integración regional como una herramienta analítica para el estudio comparado de los procesos de integración en economías emergentes. A partir de este concepto se analiza el desarrollo histórico de la integración regional centrándose en Sudamérica y el Sudeste Asiático, estableciendo los vínculos estructurales entre integración regional y desarrollo capitalista, para luego describir las características de los regímenes de integración contemporáneos. El artículo finaliza presentando algunas hipótesis desde la economía política acerca de la profundidad de la integración y la naturaleza del cambio en estos regímenes

Organizaciones regionales y mecanismos de protección de la democracia en América Latina, el Caribe, y la Unión Europea

How can regional organisations such as the EU, the OAS and UNASUR contribute to the protection of democracy in their respective member states? This study explores the performance of regional organisations in Latin America, the Caribbean and the European Union and concludes that governments design democracy protection mechanisms with a strong intergovernmental bias that gives ample political discretion in reacting to eventual violations by offenders. The European Union, Latin America and the Caribbean have experienced successive waves of democratisation. Starting from the 1970s, almost all countries in both regions can be qualified as democratic. In several cases, though, these democracies can be labelled as imperfect. Moreover, some countries have experienced instances of anti-democratic involution (in the most extreme cases) or an erosion of democratic institutions. Membership of regional organisations has contributed greatly to transition to democracy and democratic consolidation. Both scholars and political leaders perceive that regional organisations have played a significant role, among other mechanisms through democratic conditionality. In most cases, these regional organisations have included provisions to verify that their member states remain democratic (and/or obey other values such as rule of law). But the relationship between the mechanisms for scrutinising compliance with these values and the performance of the organisation applying them remains underexplored. This study analyses the institutional design of mechanisms of democracy protection (MDPs) in regional organisations in the European Union, Latin America and the Caribbean. Three elements of the institutional design result particularly relevant: the procedures for activation of MDPs and the role of different actors (i.e. governments and/or autonomous organisation bodies); the mechanism for verification and review; and the type of sanctions in combination with the procedures to adopt them. The study concludes by making the case that intergovernmental decision-making for MDPs leaves ample room for political discretion and suggests a number of possible elements for improving institutional design

Between democratic protection and self-defense : the case of Unasur and Venezuela

Contrary to the assumption that the adoption and formalization of democratic protection mechanisms by regional organizations contribute per se to democratic consolidation, this article argues that the performance of those mechanism is tied to the interests of governments that are both their rule makers and their enforcers in concrete political crises. Governments design democratic protection mechanisms minimizing the probabilities that they could escape their discretionary control contributing to the paradoxical result that the provisions end up enforcing regime stability rather than democracy. We illustrate this claim with the intervention of the Union of South American Nations (Unasur) in the post-Chávez Venezuela paying specific attention to two mechanisms: the democratic protocol and the electoral council. The structural bias in favor of the incumbent governments is not an exclusive tension of Unasur, and it should be systematically analyzed in the comparative studies and assessments of the link between regional organizations and democracy

Organising the South American space : regionalism in times of transnationalisation

Defence date: 13 October 2015Examining Board: Professor László Bruszt, EUI (Supervisor); Professor Carlos Closa Montero, EUI; Professor Olivier Dabène, Sciences Po; Professor Juan Gabriel Valdés Soublette, Government of Chile - Universidad Austral.What makes governments decide to engage in cooperation with their neighbours to deliver regional public goods? Under which conditions do they decide to keep this cooperation informal, and when do they instead prefer to formalise it through an international treaty? Why do government seem to be more capable to produce regional public goods in some policy-areas than in others? The present research addresses these questions by analysing the contemporary South American-wide regionalism from 2000 to 2014, the period in which the Initiative for the Integration of Regional Infrastructure in South America (IIRSA) was created and later formalised into the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR). First, the analysis of the intergovernmental negotiations shows that an informal institution such as IIRSA better accommodated the preferences of governments that were searching for and experimenting with a collective response to an external challenge, whereas a formal institution such as UNASUR better accommodated the preferences of governments that wanted to avoid the emergence of competitive regional projects and the defection of some states. Second, the thesis examines the interactions between governments and transnational actors and shows that regional public goods are more likely to be produced in policy-areas in which governments were able to broker non-state transnational actors to implement basic intergovernmental consensus. In answering these questions, the thesis offers an empirically informed assessment of contemporary South American regionalism without following either the over-optimistic or over-pessimistic viewpoints that dominate the current academic debate

Regímenes de Integración Regional: La construcción institucional de los mercados del sur global

The essay introduces the concept of regional integration regime as an analytical tool for the comparative study of integration processes in emergent economies. Using this concept, the author analyzes in first place the historical path of regional integration in South America and Southeast Asia, establishing the structural relations between regional integration and capitalist development. In second place, the institutional characteristics of contemporary integration regimes are described. The paper concludes advancing some hypotheses –based on political economy– about the depth of the integration and the nature of change within these regional regimes.El presente ensayo introduce el concepto de régimen de integración regional como una herramienta analítica para el estudio comparado de los procesos de integración en economías emergentes. A partir de este concepto se analiza el desarrollo histórico de la integración regional centrándose en Sudamérica y el Sudeste Asiático, estableciendo los vínculos estructurales entre integración regional y desarrollo capitalista, para luego describir las características de los regímenes de integración contemporáneos. El artículo finaliza presentando algunas hipótesis desde la economía política acerca de la profundidad de la integración y la naturaleza del cambio en estos regímenes

Constructing regionalism in South America : the cases of sectoral cooperation on transport infrastructure and energy

First online: 29 January 2018This article contributes to the study of South American regionalism focusing on the emergence of sectoral cooperation starting in 2000. To do so, the article analyses two policy areas transport infrastructure and energy integration-addressing two questions: Why has regional cooperation emerged despite the absence of economic interdependence and market driven demand for economic integration? And why are policy outcomes evident in some areas (i.e. transport infrastructure) while limited in others (i.e. energy)? It is argued that the emergence of regional cooperation as well as the variation in policy outcomes between areas can be explained largely by the articulation of a regional leadership and its effect on the convergence of state preferences. The article shows how the Brazilian leadership, incentivised by the effects of the US-led Free Trade Area of the Americas negotiations and the financial crises that hit the region in the late 1990s, made state preferences converge towards a regionalist project encompassing all South American countries by making visible the mutual benefits of cooperation on transport infrastructure and energy. In the case of energy, however, the emergence of a second regional leadership project - pursued by Chavez's Venezuela- and deep preference divergence led sectoral cooperation into a gridlock